NEWSLETTER

Society for the History of Children and Youth

Keynote Address: "The World is at Our Door: Why Historians of Children and Childhood Should Answer"

Paula S Fass, Margaret Byrne Professor of History at the University of California-Berkeley and Vice-President and President-Elect of SHCY, presented the keynote address, on Friiday evening,  after the conference dinner.

In the talk, Fass discussed the opportunity available to historians of childhood and youth to lead the profession boldly into a broader historical perspective by learning from current discussions of globalization.  In urging such an engagement on her colleagues, she suggested that children and youth were the perfect subjects for such a larger perspective because of who they are and what they offer us in terms of understanding of the human condition.  To enable us to think globally she urged that we adopt three strategies:

1)    Think in interdisciplinary ways and learn especially from those disciplines that force us to see children in comparative and global ways.

2)    Enter into contemporary policy discussions and supply the usually missing historical understanding and dimension.

3)    Think about children's history as a natural entry to world history.

In order to bring these strategies to fruition in a richer historical understanding, Fass urged that historians learn from those disciplines that are able to contribute effectively to thinking about children in a global way, especially the new understanding about children's cognition involved in recent child development and brain research; the sensitivity to global issues adopted by some recent anthropology; and the fundamental role that economics is playing in the life of children in globalization today.

Fass further tried to demonstrate how contemporary literature on globalization has influenced her own work and her understanding of such historical issues as migration, schooling and youth culture.  Finally, Fass urged scholars of children not to shy away from the lessons that globalization had to offer and to be firm in claiming legitimacy for their values regarding children, despite their knowledge of its historical and cultural bases and biases.  Globalization and "a global perspective," she concluded, "makes clear that no children are protected when there are others who are vulnerable.  And if we are not to lose fundamentals of the childhood we value, we must be prepared to defend them in a twenty-first century world and to defend them for all children, those who are our own and those who belong to other places."

Eds. Note: The Journal of Social History 38 (No.4, Summer 2005) is a special issue devoted entirely to the topic of "Globalization and Childhood.."